Love Match

The humid January air was thick with tension. The score was locked at five games apiece in the South Star Tennis Club’s B-grade mixed doubles. Sarah Childs bent her coltish frame and bounced a tennis ball, preparing to serve. A hush fell over those watching. A hush shattered almost immediately by a guttural, shuddering moan from the bauhinia tree behind Court 3, where a scene of acrobatic and highly vocal courtship had been taking place between two possums since sundown.

‘Jeez, they’re really going at it,’ drawled club secretary Doris from her vantage point in the umpire’s chair.

Sarah looked up in exasperation, concentration broken.

‘Well, they are! Haven’t heard such gutsy lovemaking since those free-love backpackers cleared out of the caravan park. Sorry, Father.’

‘No worries, Doris. Try again, Sarah,’ jollied her mixed doubles partner, the portly local priest.

Sarah forced a smile for Father Simon. Verbal encouragement was all he contributed to their partnership, but Sarah knew, even with the priest’s lousy backhand, flimsy serve and dicky knee, they could win this thing. And she could use a win. Particularly against that smug moll Laura Murphy and her wet noodle of a boyfriend.

Fiancé. Sarah heard Laura’s singsong voice correcting her thoughts. How could she forget? Especially after Laura’s perfor­mance in the clubhouse earlier, flashing her new diamond ring while the old ducks cooed over their mugs of Blend 43. ‘Don’t worry, your turn will come,’ Laura had said with a smirk, claiming victory in a rivalry Sarah hadn’t realised she was in. Laura had grad­uated from South Star High the same year as Sarah.

Focus. Sarah’s mind kept drifting, from Laura to the ‘impor­tant conversation’ her parents were expecting her for at dinner, but she wrenched it back to the present moment. She narrowed her eyes across the net, Laura shooting back a scowl in return. Sarah bounced the ball again, breathing slowly and blocking out the bellows of humping marsupials as she tried to get in the zone. It worked. Time seemed to slow, while her senses sped up. She was noticing everything – the faded astroturf, clouds of insects mesmer­ised by the overhead lights, a spectator crunching a biscuit – but it all faded away as she focused on the point where she was going to send the ball spinning out of Laura’s reach. She tossed the ball high, drawing up to her full height in one fluid motion before putting every ounce of force she could muster behind the serve.

Unfortunately, before the ball could clear the net it collided with the broad back of Father Simon, who’d been struggling to maintain his squat at the net and had popped up like a bilby. There was a meaty thwock as Sarah’s power serve pounded the priest’s left buttock, and he dropped like he’d been shot.

‘Jesus, Mary and bloomin’ Joseph!’ Doris screeched. ‘Sorry, Father.’

‘I’m all right,’ he called, nonetheless remaining very still, spread­eagled in the right service box.

‘You don’t have to take it out on the priest, Sarah,’ Laura called sweetly from the baseline.

Sarah approached Father Simon nervously. ‘Are you okay? Where did I get you?’

Having now made it onto his knees, the priest was holding out the waistband of his shorts and twisting around to inspect the dam­age. Sarah prayed he was a boxers man. Oh dear. Briefs.

Small Town Problems, Sarah thought. When you play sport with a holy man, you risk seeing his undies and they’re holey, man. Before Sarah averted her eyes out of politeness, she tried to make out the faded print. Was that Jesus in a Superman suit? Was there some special website out there selling gag underwear for priests? Sarah shook her head, trying to remove the visual now burned onto her eyeballs. See you in confession, Father.

Finally the priest picked up his racquet again.

‘So . . . is that a fault?’ Sarah asked Doris, who glared down at her. ‘Should I serve again?’

In the end Father Simon retired hurt, and Doris pronounced the match a draw. Sarah and the priest apologised profusely to each other as they headed into the clubhouse in search of an icepack.

It was the first game back after the Christmas holidays and all night Sarah had felt like everyone was watching her. A cluster of trim women in their sixties gossiping around the urn fell silent as Sarah entered. Each had known Sarah since she was born – one had taught her piano, one had timed her races at swim club, one had checked out Saddle Club books for her at the library – so she had little choice but to greet them politely even though she knew she was the subject of their chatter.

‘That got a little heated out there,’ one giggled.

‘Are you feeling all right, Sarah?’ There was the inevitable pity­ing hand on her arm. ‘It must be hard being back here, so many memories of Joh—’

‘Just trying to get Father Simon some ice,’ Sarah interrupted, fussing around in the freezer. ‘It was a terrible accident.’

In a small town, people were always looking for entertainment. The previous year, Sarah had found herself in a starring role in South Star’s drama of the moment. The tennis ladies had had a front row seat as romance blossomed on these very courts between her and Johnno West, newly home from years in London. Now he was gone, and Sarah was alone in the spotlight of their sympathetic curiosity.

Sarah checked her watch and her impatience flared. She was already late for dinner.

‘I’m fine,’ Father Simon said. The scotch he’d administered from a hip flask he happened to be carrying on the court did seem to be taking effect. As Sarah finally withdrew a fossilised icepack and extended it towards the priest, he presented his backside. Did he expect her to numb his bum for him?

‘Don’t worry,’ Sarah’s old piano teacher continued. ‘I don’t expect we’ll see much of Johnno round here for a while. You just let that broken heart mend and take care of yourself.’

There was nothing nice Sarah could think of to say, so she said nothing, clenching her lips in a tight smile. There wasn’t much you could say while almost touching a priest’s bottom, though to his credit his hands were busy tipping his flask into a cup of instant coffee. To complete the mortification, Laura had sidled in and wit­nessed the entire scene. She offered her right hand and brushed back a non-existent strand of hair from her face with the other, letting her ring catch the light.

‘Bad luck, Sarah.’

‘Same to you. It was a draw, after all. Can you take this from here, Father?’ Sarah pleaded, handing off the icepack. She gave Laura the world’s most desultory handshake. ‘See you next week – gotta run!’